cynicallyinsane wrote:Murder is immoral, right? So, is it immoral to eat animals? We don't kill them in defense, it's murder. Right?

I used to have a problem with this. I was a vegetarian once. Some people do consider this murder,
but I don't really consider this murder since some
animals are meant to be eaten in many cultures.
Of course, in India it is illegal to eat beef, so I tend to think it sometimes depends on one's culture.

It's not what you know that makes
you smart, it's knowing what you don't know.

But you pay them to kill the animal. How's the different than hiring a hitman to kill a person?

It's a little different. It's not like I go to a hunter and ask "please sir, would you mind killing an animal for me to eat?" What happens is I go to a shop. There is meat there. I buy the meat. Whether or not I buy the meat, there will still be meat there which means there will still be animals being killed. If everyone gave up meat, then yes, there would be no meat industry. But that will never, ever happen. So what difference does it make if one less person is buying meat? (this is similar to the question about why vote)

cynicallyinsane wrote:Murder is immoral, right? So, is it immoral to eat animals? We don't kill them in defense, it's murder. Right?

I think first, one would have to believe that animal's lives are as important as human lives. Then, one would have to determine that animals have even near the same rights as humans (since they cannot recognize things that are beyond their conscious level.).

In general, we do not eat animals that are in scared supply (except for the extremely rich who pay the rather large sums to go hunting for animals like lions, etc.) We eat animals that we breed, that we bring up to be our food. It is a form of survival in both ways. One way, it gives us food. The second way, it keeps the animals away from endangering human lives.

As for us eating animals as a form of murder, it wouldn't really be a form of murder. Animals are not protected under the constitution and are not defined as creatures who have rights (why should they have rights when they cannot even recognize those rights? That is why murders are executed because they have violated someone else's right to life and have blatantly shown they do not recognize their own.) The only rights animals have is not to be tortured and abused. I don't think slaughtering animals is a form fo abuse (though there are some cases, once in awhile, that they do horrible things...PETA enjoys exploiting this as much as they can...even when it's decades old!)

You cannot apply the same rights that humans have to animals. I know...Animals are important to the ecosystem...Then again, we seem to breed so many...we're not hurting the ecosystem...and at the same time...we get delicious meals of meat

Still...I guess the question should be "Do animals have the same rights as humans? Should they? Why so? How could they?"

When a man declares: "There are no blacks and whites [in morality]" he is making a psychological confession, and what he means is: "I am unwilling to be wholly good—and please don't regard me as wholly evil!" - Ayn Rand

I think the major thing PETA bases this argument on is the fact of whether or not the animal can feel pain and/or fear. That particular take depends on how much you know about animal anatomy. Taking the stand that mammals can feel pain may yield other conclusions.

However when you devise a conveyor belt system to treat animals as a source of just mass feeding(or LIVEstock) and keep them in appalling conditions throughout...then it starts to become apparant that just because it's not murder doesn't mean its entirely right.

We aren't allowed to eat people, we aren't allowed to eat a lot of other animals...Think of it like that. Livestock is born to be eaten.

I'm waiting for the day when the aliens come down and announce the entire planet Earth was just a big farm and now it's time for them to tuck in.

1) By eating animals such as chickens you're actually saving their species(Chickens never became extinct because the are a primary source of food and are breed constantly), so if we just stop eating them and realese them they would surely die.

2) If eating animals who only act out of instiinct is immoral, so is eating plants.

3) We eat so we can live and thrive so without eating plants or animals (see 2) we would surely die.

Factory farmers stuff chickens into tight windowless quarters where the chickens get so depressed and irritated that they start killing each other. Also, the poor living conditions cause an increase in illness and death. The farmers do this because they make more money that way. Even though they make less money per chicken (since more are dying and getting sick), they make more money per square-foot of space. They spend save more money then they lose by not putting money towards factory space and general care.

Also, here's two quotes about animals:

"He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals." -Immanuel Kant

"Whatever my own practice may be, I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact with the more civilized." -Henry David Thoreau

Its true that animals have feelings and suffer with the same grimace we do, perhaps a bit less since we have the innate ability to rub the salty balm of self-pity into our wounds as well, but to say that purchasing meat from the butcher is murder from that platform would make a person morally hog-tied from eating anything at all. Plants also have been proven to emote and suffer.

What is the solution here?..It seems this has less to do with meat or animals and more to do with a people longing for the grand resurgence of Compassionate Ethics in a community, in a society, in a world. Perhaps the real first step to creating that begins as Gandhi said, not in the world, not in the society, not in the community, not in the family, but in the individual who influences the family, who influences the community, who influences the society, who influences the world.

All we can do is all we can do. Be as kind and compassionate to all animals and organisms as the heart desires. If eating meat seems morally straining, dont eat it. There is Leadership ocurring with such actions. We are always influencing others at deep levels that are not even realized. And such people, with such positive influence make the world a better place as the pebble that caused the ripple creates the tsunami...Thank God for you;)

This seems almost like a definition problem to me. In legal terms Murder means a very specific thing,namely to kill another with malice and forethought. That malice part is the bit that we're getting hung up on here. Malice is the deliberate desire to cause pain or harm. It seems to me that the goal when killing an animal for food is not causing pain. It is creating food.
If the question we are debating is "is it moral to eat animals", well that opens an entire different line of discussion.
The argument I find compelling is we don't stand in moral judgment over animals for killing other animals for sustenance, so why judge our own meat eating ways. All said and done, we humans are really just a rather clever animal. Our brains are well developed, but we are biologically mammals, just like myriad other animals. Why do we find to need to say that it is wrong for one type of animal to kill for food(namely us) but not wrong for another(lions).
In short we are alive so we eat. Biologically we have evolved as omnivores so we eat meat as well as vegetation. Calling our very nature into moral question is a path towards madness.
I think it's a better line of inquiry to wonder if our ways of raising animals have strayed off a moral path.
That all being said, I do salute those that abstain from eating meat for moral reasons. Few people have the strength to live by their moral convictions, and those that do are to be commended. Or at least admired for their drive.